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Melissa P Ford looks at obesity in relation to diabetes
The current opinion in medicine is that diet is definitely not entirely about willpower. It's controlled mostlyby the brain, which gets signals and sends signals to other organs and systems implicated in metabolism.We came to think of dieting as a matter of willpower because for the past 500 years or so of Westernmedicine we didn't know just how many hormones, enzymes, and neurons are truly implicated inmetabolism. But now we are beginning to get our heads around substances and structures within the bodythat have never been appreciated before.
Even if you crave food because of a nutritional deficiency, ingesting more calories than you expend ormetabolize will cause weight gain. We can make a long list of the factors that can contribute to peopleeating more than they need or exercising less than they ought to (telly, the Internet, junk food, unsafeneighborhoods, lack of pavements in cities, dangerous weather conditions, chronic dehydration, videogames, depression, inadequate local sports facilities, driving a car for work, soda consumption, giganticfood portions at restaurants, working at a desk, eating fast food, not having time to cook, not having timeto exercise, a sore toe.). And there are some genetic disorders for which obesity is a symptom. But mostpeople who are not candidates to be case studies in textbooks could theoretically lose weight by eatingless and moving more. It's calories, calories, calories, all the way down. If one weighs 20 stone, it can behard to move so exercise may be a toughie at that point, but after bariatric surgery weight loss can bemaintained through diet and exercise. The dirty secret of the field of nutrition, is, however, that "energybalance" is a buzzphrase with practically no data behind it. The only way to know if you are eating theright amount of food and doing the right amount of activity is if you are in good shape and your bloodtest results and vital signs are all right. There are no hard and fast rules, the "food pyramid" is based onsome of the worst science around, and genetics are largely responsible for dictating metabolism. Wecontrol what we decide to put in our mouths, ultimately, but the signals that ask us to pick up chocolate,coffee, dirt, pickles, ice cream, or a hamburger are very real.
The most promising new pharmacological agents for obesity do not act on the digestive system tointerfere with fat storage the way that drugs like Xenical (orlistat) or Meridia (sibutramine) do. They act onthe brain and the endocrine system instead. Sanofi-Aventis's pill Acomplia (rimonabant) has beenthrough a number of clinical trials and would be the first drug in a new class called endocannabinoidreceptor blockers if it is approved. The endocannabinoid system is indeed involved in the enjoyment ofcannabis, but what's really interesting is that in some people, eating can excite the same region of thebrain, creating a veritable addiction to the pleasure that one may experience from eating. Block theendocannabinoid receptor and eating isn't as much fun anymore so you don't want to eat; you eat onlywhen the tummy rumbles, etc., and can lose weight. (Side note: at every talk that someone from mycompany has attended about rimonabant, someone who thinks he's very clever has asked a silly questionlike, "Did you get the mice to smoke cannabis?" [Berlin] or "So why are there any skinny pot smokers?[Washington, DC])
The other very promising agents for weight loss are injectable substances that work on the endocrinesystem, for the most part. Symlin (pramlintide), approved in March 2005 by the US FDA for type 1 andtype 2 diabetes patients who whose control is okay (7.5-9% A1C) but could be improved by a reduction inpostprandial hyperglycemia, is also being trialled as an obesity treatment in non-diabetic subjects. It is asynthetic version of the human hormone amylin that is also knocked out when one develops type 1diabetes or has beta-cell dysfunction in type 2 diabetes. Type 1s who take Symlin who could stand to losea few drop an average of 5 to 10 lbs and keep it off as long as they are taking Symlin. But type 1s who arethin already don't lose weight. Because it's not absolutely essential to survival, no one thought it was veryimportant until recently. It was only discovered about 15 years ago but now its potential is huge. Lilly haspartnered with Amylin Pharmaceuticals (the company that makes pramlintide) to market Amylin's othercurrent product, a GLP-1 mimetic called Byetta (exenatide), which was approved by the FDA in April 2005.
The awesome thing about exenatide, which has been approved in the US for type 2s who are not doingwell on oral medication as a strategy to try before prescribing insulin, is that it lowers blood glucosewithout causing hypoglycemia to the same extent that insulin can. It also makes people lose weight!Exenatide is made from gila monster spit (synthesized from a sample in a lab, not harvested from realmonsters). It is called a GLP-1 mimetic because it acts just like GLP-1 in humans. GLP-1 is a gut hormonein a class called incretins that are stimulated to a greater extent by oral consumption of carbs than they
are by an IV injection of the same amount of glucose. That means that when you get injected with 50 gglucose, you might have an insulin secretion response that's a 2 on a scale of 5. But if you drank 50 gglucose, you would get an insulin secretion rise that's more like a 5 on a scale of 5. (But of course if youhave type 1 diabetes you just get a high blood sugar either way because your pancreas can't do anythingreally.)
GLP-1 helps to increase insulin secretion from the pancreas in a glucose dependent manner (if bg is high,giving GLP-1 will help bring it down; if glucose is low, GLP-1 will not make it drop - but insulin makesblood sugar go down even if it's already low because crosstalk with the liver is dysfunctional ornonexistent in diabetes). GLP-1 is deficient in type 2 diabetes, which is implicated in impaired glucosetolerance that leads to hyperglycemia. As I understand it work is ongoing to determine why GLP-1becomes deficient in type 2 diabetes; at this point it is accepted that GLP-1 is deficient but not clear why.
Exenatide has also been shown to help improve islet health in animal models of diabetes and the USNational Institutes of Health are conducting a trial in long-term type 1s to see if it has potential to helpcure type 1.
There are other approaches to metabolic manipulation of weight in development - oxyntomodulin(Imperial College London), cortisol synthesis inhibitors (DiObex and Cortendo partnership for one), andmore that I can't remember right now!
Author: Melissa P Ford <[email protected]>. Melissa P Ford is not a medical professional. She hasType 1 diabetes and uses an insulin pump. The information given here is based on her own personalexperience. More about Melissa P Ford.Created: July 2005; Last updated: Thursday 13 October 2005